Atheism doesn't contend any of those "arguments". The only thing that atheism contends is a lack of belief in god(s). Some or most scientists may support some or all of those positions, and the evidence for those positions may be used in support of the atheistic position, but none of them is required by or defines atheism. An atheist is free to accept, reject, or completely ignore any of those arguments, while still remaining 100% atheist.

Curious, what kind of evidence, if any, would make you re-think your atheism?

Curious, what kind of evidence, if any, would make you re-think your atheism?

If a particular sect of theists made repeated non-trivial predictions with an accuracy better than chance, or if they could repeatedly validate their claims in properly controlled tests, I would probably re-think my atheism.

I would also re-think it following a demonstration of omnipotence. If, for example, a prophet announced that his god would change the value of pi, I would be very impressed if it actually happened.

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If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. — Paul Dirac

In some cases, I would say that the evidence should also be measurable and allow us to make predictions about nature or behavior, but I don't think these criteria apply to the claim "god exists", much like they wouldn't apply to the claim "George Washington was the first president of the USA" or "the pen is blue".

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He never pays attention, he always knows the answer, and he can never tell you how he knows. We can't keep thrashing him. He is a bad example to the other pupils. There's no educating a smart boy.-– Terry Pratchett, Thief of Time

Atheism doesn't contend any of those "arguments". The only thing that atheism contends is a lack of belief in god(s). Some or most scientists may support some or all of those positions, and the evidence for those positions may be used in support of the atheistic position, but none of them is required by or defines atheism. An atheist is free to accept, reject, or completely ignore any of those arguments, while still remaining 100% atheist.

Curious, what kind of evidence, if any, would make you re-think your atheism?

Offhand, some degree of consistency would be a fairly good start. If everyone who claimed that they knew god or had revelations from god actually came to similiar conclusions instead of tens of thousand different interpretations spread over many thousands of religions.

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"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

I hightly doubt this is something that hasn't been said before. Too bad I've been drinking tonight and can't really focus on the links, and sadly I thought you had evidence, tbright. You know, something you could put into your own words. You know...

I randomly chose this link from the above, and in the second paragraph, which discusses the historical evidence for the great flood, I find this sentence:

"A Sumerian king list from c. 2100 BC divides itself into two categories: those kings who ruled before a great flood and those who ruled after it."

By definition, one would think a drowned Sumerian civilization would remain a drowned Sumerian civilization. A bunch of dead people who can maintain their culture beyond the grave are pretty impressive. You sure you want to worship the guy who couldn't permanently wipe them out, or the Sumerians, who obviously have superhuman abilities.

Don't christians think about anything?

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It isn't true that non-existent gods can't do anything. For instance, they were able to make me into an atheist.

Not interested in clicking a thousand links. If you really do have convincing evidence, say it right here, on this forum, in your own words. Tell us why it is irrefutable evidence, tell us why we would be wrong in dismissing it.

Just one piece of evidence. Just one sentence describing the evidence. I clicked a few of the links and already I'm too frustrated with the blind assumptions and fallacies that I am just not at all interested in reading the rest. And that's just skimming through the god damn things.

Tell us, in your own words, the BEST evidence, in your opinion, in support of Chrisitianity.

If you cannot do that, then don't go around telling people you have evidence.

Here's a gem PP. On '8 Really Good Reasons Why Christianity is True'. The man who writes the blog has a part for historical evidence of Jesus. He doesn't actually make an argument either, just links to another site. It links to an online ministry that tackles the criticism of the bible not being reliable as a source of evidence on it's own. He argues that the Jews "of the first century of the Christian era possessed a unique ability to remember and record the statements of Jesus of Nazareth that would be deemed almost impossible by modern readers. The ancient Jews of Israel had developed sophisticated memory techniques to remember every word of a discourse by their rabbi. Their ability to recount verbatim long speeches or teaching would astonish modern teachers and critics of the Gospel record. Over the centuries the religious leaders of Israel had developed advanced memory techniques to enable their students to remember in remarkable detail every single statement of their religious teachers." There's some great material here.

Edit:One of those links goes to a computer hardware website where someone made a post on their forum trying to prove christianity. Seriously? This is great stuff. And it's nothing but about ten paragraphs of some guy saying over and over again, 'there's much proof that supports the bible'. Without actually showing any of it. I don't even have to make fun of this stuff, tbright seems to be doing it for me.

« Last Edit: October 27, 2010, 10:57:54 PM by Alzael »

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"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

Here's a gem PP. On '8 Really Good Reasons Why Christianity is True'. The man who writes the blog has a part for historical evidence of Jesus. He doesn't actually make an argument either, just links to another site. It links to an online ministry that tackles the criticism of the bible not being reliable as a source of evidence on it's own. He argues that the Jews "of the first century of the Christian era possessed a unique ability to remember and record the statements of Jesus of Nazareth that would be deemed almost impossible by modern readers. The ancient Jews of Israel had developed sophisticated memory techniques to remember every word of a discourse by their rabbi. Their ability to recount verbatim long speeches or teaching would astonish modern teachers and critics of the Gospel record. Over the centuries the religious leaders of Israel had developed advanced memory techniques to enable their students to remember in remarkable detail every single statement of their religious teachers." There's some great material here.

The ancients (and even more recent peoples) did have lots of tricks for remembering things. Christian clerics in the 12th and 13th centuries spent about half their time learning how to remember bible stories verbatim, etc. But to use the ability as the reason such stories weren't written down sooner is a bit silly. Either someone eventually remembered that they knew how to write and decided to put their new skills to work, or someone needed an excuse as to why nobody (even the educated ones) bothered to scribble down a few things concurrent with jc, I dunno.

Also, the part where the four gospels differ a lot in the details does not bode well for this excuse. If half a century later the story was that distorted by the four dudes who had heard it second hand, then bragging about accuracy is sort of the wrong thing to do.

The exhortation that the words of jesus were so impressive and important that it only took five or six decades for people to decide it was worth recording on stone or papyrus or an early Apple II is not the stuff that gives me cause to be excited. I'm too busy trying to figure out how naked mole rats, who cannot survive long in an open atmosphere, made it through the year on the ark. When someone can answer that one definitively, I'll start listening to their other excuses with a bit more interest.

Addendum: The clerics of a thousand years ago learned how to memorize stuff, but they had stuff to memorize. That's much different than remembering accurately something that was told to you as a story. Humans are famous for getting things wrong via human memory time and time again. How do you fact check stuff fifty years later, yet again 2,000 years later. Can't be done. Especially when there are no facts in the first place.

« Last Edit: October 27, 2010, 11:04:02 PM by ParkingPlaces »

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It isn't true that non-existent gods can't do anything. For instance, they were able to make me into an atheist.

I do realize that they did have good memory tricks to remember things. It was the fact that this was being used to justify the absolute reliability of a two-thousand year old book like the bible that I found enormously funny. Really though, keep reading some of the stuff from those sites he linked. It's funny stuff. You could spend days tearing it apart.

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"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

Rather than a mind game, think of it as a mind-experiment. Please tell us what evidence would make you re-think your theism. Humor me. I'm quite serious.

I've addressed your question many times on these forums. I've readily admitted that I'm closed. I've done the research, and I'm convinced that Jesus is Lord and Savior. He is the bridegroom, and the Church is His bride.

I've addressed your question many times on these forums. I've readily admitted that I'm closed. I've done the research, and I'm convinced that Jesus is Lord and Savior. He is the bridegroom, and the Church is His bride.

So this research could potentially have falsified your God hypothesis, but didn't? I would be interested to hear more about your research. So as not to further derail this topic, could you please point me in the direction of a relevant thread?

edit: added quote

« Last Edit: October 28, 2010, 12:26:19 AM by xphobe »

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I stopped believing for a little while this morning. Journey is gonna be so pissed when they find out...

I've addressed your question many times on these forums. I've readily admitted that I'm closed. I've done the research,I've forsaken any notion of critical thinking and I'm convinced that Jesus is Lord and Savior.

I fixed that for you.

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If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. — Paul Dirac

^^^^ In all fairness to tbright, if the links that he provided were typical of his research, then it's not really his fault that he can't think critically. That stuff would erode anyone brain functions given time.

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"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.

I'd love to hear his response to the Sumerian example I gave, but I'm pretty sure I can make up even better excuses.

"Well, you see, one of Noah's kids was married to a Sumerian and they ran back there and restarted the Sumerian Empire because they didn't believe in the christian god because they thought the flood was a myth, even though they just barely survived it."

Hey, this excuse stuff is fun. Try it yourself. You'll see.

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It isn't true that non-existent gods can't do anything. For instance, they were able to make me into an atheist.

Question:If the flood wiped out all life on Earth except for Noah and his family, why do many ancient cultures show a consistent historical timeline that is unbroken. The egyptian empire was flourishing without being interrupted as were the Chinese and others. So why is there no evidence that they were wiped out?

Response:After the flood occured god took one of Noah's sons and daughters and used them to repopulate the old empires miraculously overnight. Using his powers to put all of the buildings back exactly where they had been before and then mindwashed everyone to believe that they were the previous residents of the old empires. This way he can provide simple and obvious evidence that the bible is a lying piece of tripe, thus giving us yet one more test of our faith.

That chomping sound you're hearing is my rear brain trying to eat it's way to the front.

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"I drank what?!"- Socrates

"Dying for something when you know you'll be resurrected is not a sacrifice.It's a parlour trick."- an aquaintance

Philip of Macedon: (via messenger) If we enter Sparta, we will raze all your buildings and ravage all your women.Spartan Reply: If.